With tentative steps, she approached one of the mirrors. At first, she saw naught save the silver sheen. But the surface was not flat, it rippled like water, and had depth that had earned these mirrors the name ‘pools.’ Vertiginous waves seized her, and Athene stumbled, feeling like she plummeted into the mirror itself.
An icy chill washed over her skin while silvery images blurred about her. A flicker, a fall, as if into the mirror.
A gasping breath as her vantage lurched into impossible angles.
A serpentine neck wrapped around her ankle and Athene shrieked as it jerked her underneath the slavering monster. The Gígas’s fist slammed toward her face.
She twisted to the side and the blow crashed into loose scree, sending the both of them careening further down the escarpment, toward a precarious ledge that might pitch them into open air beneath Olympus.
Now, the creature leaned in, roaring at her with teeth filed into fangs, spewing putrid breath over her. It meant to actually bite her face off.
Screaming, Athene twisted the spear in its belly. The Gígas’s gaping maw twisted up in pain.
Flooding as much Pneuma as she could into the Pneumatikoi of Potency, Athene heaved with her legs. Her attacker flew skyward five feet, enough for her to roll out from under it before it crashed back down onto the slope. Its momentum sent it skittering toward the precipice below. On her belly, Athene watched as it skidded over the edge, arms and serpents flailing wild gyrations for the heartbeat before it dropped off into the mists.
More Pneuma. She needed to send more Pneuma coursing through her channels, into the Pneumatikoi of Tolerance to block the pain and get her moving.
Doing so, she had barely gained her feet before another shadow fell over her.
Oh, damn.
Athene dove to the side once more, an instant before the crashing form of another Gígas landed in the spot she had just occupied. The impact of its landing flung up a storm of loose rock, but it barely fazed the Gígas, who was already up, advancing upon her with a spear.
This one had legs and was barely warped by the consumption of Man-flesh. Only when she rose, her own spear between them, did she recognize its—his—face. Pallas, son of Kreios and father of Hephaistos, among other perverse spawn. His eyes had taken on a leonine aspect, and coarse hair had sprung up around him like a mane, but otherwise he might still have passed for an ordinary Titan.
Still, he had joined the attack on Olympus. Which meant she was more than free to kill the bastard.
But this … she had seen this moment. The revelation dazed her, left her reeling, even as she remembered it had in her vision.
His lunge, when it came, was so fast she barely saw him move. Even with her Alacrity Pneumatikoi flowing, he was a blur, his spear thrust more like a soaring arrow. Her own spear turned the point aside, barely, but not before it struck her cuirass with enough force to part the bronze, then gouge her bicep.
Stumbling backward, Athene gave ground under the furious onslaught, careening ever closer to the same ledge she had just sent the other Gígas pitching down. Pallas roared—that too more lion-like than human—and charged in, and Athene could see why some Men had called him a god of war like her brother Ares.
Again and again, she deflected his spear with her own, only managing to keep up by continuing to give ground. She’d never defeat him like this, though. Internally, she shifted the flow of her Pneuma, draining even what she’d sent into Tolerance—and the pain hit her in fresh waves—to pour into the Pneumatikoi of Steadfastness, turning her flesh to iron.
His next blow, she allowed to take her in the shoulder. It punched through her cuirass, drove through her reinforced skin, and sent her down to one knee with sheer force. But her own swipe took out Pallas’s kneecap and sent him pitching over, tumbling among the scree.
White haze danced at the fringes of her vision, her stomach lurching at the pain. It forced her to return the Pneuma flow to Tolerance just to retain consciousness. Shaking off the delirium, she gained her feet.
Pallas had started to turn over. Athene couldn’t use her left arm but managed a clumsy swipe of her spear blade, nevertheless, carving out Pallas’s hamstring. The Gígas bellowed in agony, all pretense of leonine might cast aside.
This bastard not only made war on Olympus … Worse, he sired Hephaistos. What a father he must have been, to raise a son capable of such … such …
Panting, Athene dropped down, knees landing upon the Gígas’s back. She cast aside the spear and pulled a knife, then wedged the point in between the creature’s shoulder blades. “You know hunters claim lion skins as proof of their prowess … I think I’m going to wear yours.”
And she set to carving, his screams resounding of the slopes of Olympus.
Drenched in sweat and desperate to draw breath, Athene pitched over backwards. Her arse smacked hard upon the rocky floor, drawing forth a groan. But the physical pain faded far more quickly than the afterimages of madness which had flitted through her mind, and she caught herself casting about the cavern and cringing at the sight of the other Oracle Mirrors.
Then Mother was there, hands upon her cheeks, forcing Athene to look into her aureate gaze. Holding it there, tethered to this moment. Almost painfully, Athene’s pounding pulse slowed, leaving behind an equally throbbing headache in its wake.
“What …?”
“I do not know what you saw,” Mother admitted. “The Mirrors are personal, and I cannot imagine what now haunts you. Some aspect of the past you had not known? Some vision of your future?”
The latter, for certain. And, much as it sickened her, part of her looked forward to it.
